


Letting it all out

by TheAcheron (Asphodelethe)



Category: Supernatural
Genre: Human Castiel, cas breaks down, post 9x6 perhaps
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2013-11-07
Updated: 2013-11-07
Packaged: 2017-12-31 17:43:26
Rating: Not Rated
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,142
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/1034529
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Asphodelethe/pseuds/TheAcheron
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Post 9x6 mneh. Basically, just wanted Cas to get really really mad, and sad, and all the good stuff. It's not what I think will happen at all, but still. Have at it.</p>
            </blockquote>





	Letting it all out

“You’ll be fine without us, right? “

And just like that, the levee broke. 

Furious, suddenly furious, he threw down his vest, shrugged Dean’s hand off his shoulder, and turned on his heel. He was past the door before he even realised he was running. But he didn’t stop. His feet flew – the sensation of which was not lost on him – and suddenly he was down the street and rounding the corner. Cars flashed past, just colour in the corner of his eyes, blurred by how angrily his eyes were squinting, brow furrowed, teeth bared.   
He kept on running.   
Before long his new human lungs were straining and he panted out ragged breaths even as he ignored the burning in his chest. Sweat beaded on his face, on his back, on his neck, and the sting of it flowing into his eyes only incensed his fury. His calves began to cramp, and the breakneck pace he had been sprinting at slowed first to a reluctant jog, then a trot, until finally, agonisingly, he came to a weary stop.   
He didn’t recognise the park he found himself in, nor the bench he collapsed on. But that didn’t matter. All that mattered was the gradually growing red behind his eyes and the clamped fists he held on his shaking legs. 

“Look man... you can’t stay”

The words swirled uninvited out of his memory. The sinking sensation he had felt, the rejection, the utter bewilderment all came rushing back, but he pushed it down.  
“Fuck you,” he growled, through clenched teeth. 

“I’m sorry, but we have to let you go... You’re just too much trouble, Steve.” 

“Fuck you,” he repeated, but louder this time, and with venom. 

“Cas, I.. I’m sorry. But we ‘ve gotta go now... You’ll be fine without us, right?”

“FUCK YOU!” He screamed this time. “Fuck you!” He was standing. He didn’t remember getting up, but the red haze had descended and he couldn’t care less. “I don’t need you, telling me you’re sorry! I did it all on my own! I found a job, I rented an apartment, I was learning to be human. All by myself!”   
Suddenly he could see the imagined forms of the elder Winchester, of his brother, of Nora and her bitchy employees who had made no effort to hide how weird they found him. He could see their pitying smiles, their condescending smirks and calming raised hands like he was some kind of small animal that needed reassuring. And he could see how they viewed him.   
Poor poor Castiel, such a shame he fell, such a shame he’s human and broken and delicate now. Such a shame he couldn’t even hold onto a job for more than a few days. Poor thing, he doesn’t even know how to be human.  
His imagined Dean stepped forwards. Sam, behind him, grinned encouragingly and nodded. Dean’s hands were still raised, and that half-smile, half-frown thing he did so well was plastered right across his freckled face. Castiel had never wanted to punch someone more... even if he was made-up.

“Hey now, Cas,” the imagined Winchester said, his voice low and nonthreatening. “It’ll all be okay, you’ll see. I can’t explain right now, but you can come home soon, I promi-“

But just like that, Cas found himself beating the everliving shit out of a spectre. His blows drew no blood, his kicks didn’t wind him, and even scratching at that gentle smile couldn’t put a stop to it. The spectre just tells him it’ll all be okay, and Cas had to cover his ears because if he hears that phrase one more time he’s going to go mad with frustration.

“You can come home soon....” 

The promise of belonging hung thick in the air and Cas fell to his knees in the grass. Mud quickly soaked through his stained jeans, but he barely noticed. The ghostly figures were surrounding him, and their eyes were still so full of pity, of pretending to understand that no, no he doesn’t belong anywhere any more. His head grew heavy and he allowed himself to stare unseeing at the ground.   
“We were family once,” he muttered, and sighed, because obviously that didn’t mean anything anymore. Why would it? That was a long time ago, in different circumstances, before so much betrayal, and failure, and falling, and he wishes it could all rewind; back to him and two boys, and an old drunk. Back to the family he felt he truly belonged to.

But his adoptive family don’t want him, and his blood family want him dead, and the humans he tried so hard to be a part of just want him to disappear, and where does that leave him? Alone once more and with nowhere to go. He was so lucky to find this job, and the manager was so kind, and the apartment he rented so cheap and serviceable... And when he had called Sam and Dean, something seemed to slot into place. Perhaps this was how his human life would go, he thought. Perhaps not at the bunker with the boys, but here, independently, where he could still be of help occasionally, but simultaneously live his own new life with his new friends and simple work and... And of course that couldn’t last. Of course he would screw it up because no, they’re right; he doesn’t know how to be human. Not yet. But if they’d just give him a chance, he thinks, they’d see that he’s not so broken, not so delicate. He was a soldier. He was an angel. He was billions of years old, and billions of years worth of knowledge is crammed inside his tiny human head, and if they just listened they’d know that he was not some small trembling animal, but nature and energy and time itself all compressed into one small human-sized package. They’d know how ridiculous it was to presume he couldn’t take care of himself, couldn’t fend for himself, couldn’t learn to be more than he was.

And that’s where the bitter, frustrated tears came from when they welled up in his eyes and spilled unchecked down his work-smooth cheeks and onto the stupid white shirt he had been wearing when everything went sideways.

It wasn’t until maybe half an hour later that the familiar growl of a familiar engine came down the street and was cut off, to be replaced by familiar voices calling his name as two sets of familiar arms wrapped around him as he sat there in the mud. His tears started anew, but that didn’t matter, because it seemed to be true what they say – letting it all out is good for you – and a warm spark of fresh hope ignited in his fast-beating human heart that told him that it was all going to be okay.

**Author's Note:**

> So there's that. Poor ol' Cas.


End file.
